It is one of the many cities in the occupied West Bank that has suffered due to the deviations of the Wall from the Green Line. Bilin has become a popular example of Palestinian villages that have been isolated by the construction of the Wall, separating them from the Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem through illegal annexation of Palestinian land.

ANTI-WALL PROTESTS

The village is often in the news for its anti-Wall protests and campaigns against the building of illegal Jewish settlements that have annexed 60 percent of Bilin’s land, according to local municipality estimates. Weekly protests against the Wall are carried out by Palestinian, Israeli and international protesters. Gush Shalom, Anarchists against the Wall and International Solidarity Movement are the three main organizations that have organized these civil disobedience demonstrations.

SETTLEMENT EXPANSION

According to a B’Tselem report issued in December 2005, “the revised route of the barrier surrounds 60 settlements (including 12 in East Jerusalem), separating them from the rest of the West Bank and creating territorial contiguity between them and Israel.” Bilin is one of six Palestinian villages that run adjacent to the Wall that has been constructed around these settlements, or the Modiin Ilit bloc.

Six hundred dunams of land owned by families in the city of Bilin have been designated for 1,200 housing unit as part of plans to expand the Modiin Ilit bloc, according to Bzzz*zTselem.

In September 2007, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of moving the Wall westwards, thereby returning 250 aces of land to the village of Bilin. However, the court rejected appeals to stop construction of an Israeli settlement named Mattiyahu East.